What are your thoughts on book contests? Do you believe winning one can further your career? Which ones, if any, do you enter?
It all depends on your motivation. A writer can look at a contest as a way to test their talent. An athlete trains, and a writer writes. A runner completes the race, a distance covered in a certain amount of time. A writer finishes a work in a genre and with a certain word count. The results, however, are different. Where a runner covers a predetermined distance, at a pace that is mathematical, a writer’s work is subjective, as in subject to the whims and taste of a judge or jurors. It is understandable why one takes the measure of their talent because nobody wants to do anything in isolation. The perspective that I think is best to take, and the sanest to adopt is detachment. To quote Lydgate, “You can please some of the people all of the time, you can please all of the people some of the time, but you can't please all of the people all of the time.”
Contests are the collision of commerce with the pitfalls of psychology. Some contests are a consumerist ploy, in that writers may or may not pay a fee, though it’s certain they enter the arena for comparison. The judge could be the Lord High Executioner or a star chamber of agents who hold the pen and paper of a publishing contract. Thumbs up, thumbs down, or the cold silence of intergalactic space.
I’ve served as a judge and as a juror. I’ll be honest. I didn’t enjoy it, though I am grateful for the experience. I can sympathize with agents because I have seen disasters of manuscripts. The rules can specify margins and fonts, but there is always that special Ken or Karen who thinks the rules need not apply to their Precious. Every. Single. Time.
Regardless of the brain droppings on the pages within, if you can’t follow simple directions, I doubt you are professional in other aspects of your career. It’s a bet that I’ll take without thinking I am James Bond against Le Chiffre in Casino Royale. And then there’s the fundamentals of knowing the rules and expectations of the genre…
The ellipses is intentional because I want to be clear about one thing:
I am not a snob or a purist. I’ve never been jealous or envious of another writer. Honestly. I know how damn hard it is to write something, to disappear behind the page. I admire good writers, no matter their genre or style. We all have unique linguistic fingerprints, and they should be celebrated. I also understand the need for validation.
As for the time I served as a juror, I experienced despair because I read the same damn story got what felt like a hundred times. The music was in the same key, and there were few variations on the melody. I assume the writers wrote what they thought would appeal and sell, or were somehow infected with the latest enthusiasm. Vigilante noir. Vampires. 50 Shades of Dread.
Alas, we must sell our wares in the Temple of Lucre.
As for winning contests (let’s substitute awards), I really don’t know. At face value, it’s that validation, that recognition we crave, and that should be valued as an accomplishment. Your work, your creation has stood out. My second published short story placed in the top 10 for the Fish Prize, in a field of over 4,000 international submissions. I was overjoyed and proud. I am fortunate to have been listed several times for the Bath and Bridport Prizes in the UK, the Agatha, Anthony, Derringer, Silver Falchion, and took home a Macavity and a Shamus award. I floated to the top, but I am acutely aware that the water is not a lake or a river, but an ocean. Put in cruel terms, I’ve had agents say to me in person, ‘The nominations are nice, but you didn’t win.’ The message there is a point for marketing and the old chestnut that you can’t eat prestige.
Then there are what I call the anti-readers, the people who deliberately won’t read the prize winners because they assume they are elitist, and henceforth die Scheiße.
My take on all of this is to apply the F.I.D.O Method.
Write. Do your best.
There’s a good chance you are like me, your own worst critic of your work, but no matter what you do, you can’t change those fingerprints. Be you. The hecklers will always be in the peanut gallery. The ones who scream the loudest often can’t write one true sentence, so…
F*ck It, Drive On.
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